
Educational app for early childhood developmentlower primary schoolteacher professional development
Welcome to Nthanda
Nthanda is a mobile application that seeks to help learners smoothly transition from early childhood development (ECD) to early primary school. It contains learning content for ECD, early primary school, and teacher training resources.
The content in the app is presented using visually rich and interactive media such as videos, audio, animations, images, and texts. This is to make learning fun and help learners understand the concepts much easier. This variety of media also expands the number of ways through which learners and teachers can access the content, depending on the available hardware.
The content that is designed for learners in the app focuses on literacy and numeracy. There are four subjects as follows: Masamu (Mathematics), Chichewa (the primary language in Malawi), English, and Nthano (short stories for kids). All subjects, except English, are presented in Chichewa and designed for the Malawi curriculum context.

What inspired the creation of Nthanda?
The development of the Nthanda app and its content was inspired by the crisis which has hit the education system in Malawi. Almost all levels of the Malawi education system are in deep problems which will certainly spell doom if bold and decisive action is not taken. For example, 90% of ten-year-olds cannot read a simple text or story and understand it; learners travel long distances to access education; and teachers struggle with large classes while having little to no access to teacher professional development (TPD).

Pilot project for Nthanda
During this period, Nthanda and its content reached 1, 743 children at the lower primary school level (standard 1 and 2) and 312 children in ECD centers. This was done through 10 schools, 30 churches, and 5 ECD centers. Other audiences included 30 teachers, 30 school committee members, and 90 village champions who facilitated the ECD lessons via churches.

Pilot findings
